Donatiens says he wants to see her?’
Michel sensed Mundy was starting to sway; just a touch more. ‘From our earlier conversation, I think he’ll want to. He’s going to confirm back to me later.’
‘Then why don’t we just wait for his confirmation. He might say no — he doesn’t want to see her.’
‘I… I wanted to make sure of the ground first: where S-18 stood.’ Michel purposely appeared hesitant. ‘I didn’t want to build his hopes up only to let him down. He’s already had one let down with not being able to speak to his fiancee. And… well, we’ve got another problem.’
‘What’s that?’
Mundy was where he wanted. Teed up and ready for the swing through. ‘I’m worried that Donatiens isn’t going to last through the programme. Only three days in, and he’s missing his fiancee like hell. The fact that he hasn’t been able to speak to her has hit him hard.’
‘Withdrawal symptoms — happens a lot. He’ll probably get over it in a week or two.’
‘I don’t think so. Him wanting to speak to her is all tied in to a sort of guilt complex over what he’s done. He feels the need to desperately explain that this has nothing to do with betraying her father; that this is all just about Roman and survival. He feels that her father was good to him, and he doesn’t want it seen that he’s let her and her father down, betrayed them. And for good measure he wants to throw in that he still loves her. Maybe he sees that as the final noble gesture: “I still love you, but look what I’m sacrificing for it.” And if he’s not going to get the chance to pass that on, get closure on the whole caboodle with her and her father, then I think the guilt’s just going to work deeper. We’ll end up with a problem — he won’t last the course.’ Michel’s voice was doom-laden as he hit the last words. Part had been passed on earlier by Chac, part he’d filled in and embellished, but hopefully the joins were seamless. Only twenty-four hours sitting on the fence, and once again he was back to steering events where he wanted them to go. The fear of possibly losing grip of the Lacailles was again running through him like raw voltage.
‘So, what’s the solution?’
‘I think there’s a way of using this situation now with his birth mother to our advantage. Killing two birds with one stone.’ Michel explained his thinking and Mundy stayed mostly silent, confirming only a couple of small points. At the end he was back again to ‘I don’t know,’ but Michel sensed that Mundy was warming to the idea, his earlier reservations were fast dying. He was eighty-percent there.
‘As soon as you know from Donatiens whether or not he finally wants to see her, let me know.’ Mundy exhaled like a deflating tyre. ‘I’ll give you my decision then.’
Except for a couple of times when Lowndes looked down and shook his head, his eyes hardly left Elena’s as she ran through the whole sorry saga of the past weeks.
‘You mean the police are seeking you now, as we speak?’
‘Yes. The last four days — since we left England.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Seeing the weight of problems she’d carried with Lorena suddenly shift to Lowndes’ shoulders, she felt the need to apologise. ‘But I just didn’t see any other way through. Ryall had blocked all the routes — if I’d turned my back, she’d have been trapped there. And if I hadn’t made out I was Lorena’s mother, you probably wouldn’t have seen her. She’s the only one you’d take authority from.’
‘Right.’ Lowndes looked at her levelly. ‘One truth at least.’
Elena looked away awkwardly for a second, then gestured towards the session couch. ‘And as things turned out, in the end I was right to take that action. Vindicated.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Vindicated.’ Lowndes chuckled nervously. He was quickly back to ruffling, trying to clear his thoughts. Then stopped abruptly, looking up again. ‘Look — what you’ve just told me, you never told me. Right? Otherwise it might be seen that I’ve been an accomplice in this too.’
Elena raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘I don’t see how that’s such a problem now. I’ve got to contact the police in any case, hand Lorena over and tell all about Ryall. Given that my reasons for taking her were founded, I don’t see that they’re going to pursue it. And certainly Ryall won’t be in any position to press charges.’
‘True. But… but that’s not the main problem now. This really all goes back to my first concerns about False Memory Syndrome.’
‘What sort of problem?’ With Lowndes’ hesitance and his eyes suddenly having trouble meeting hers directly, Elena got the first warning signs that this was no light problem. One last hair-ruffle and Lowndes leant forward with forearms rested on his knees to explain.
He’d mentioned False Memory Syndrome at the outset of the sessions with Lorena, and particularly before this last session now involving hypnosis.
‘The reason that I emphasised it again is that hypnosis is seen as highly prone to suggestion. That’s why I was reluctant to use it, particularly in a potential child abuse case. But, as you pointed out, it was likely the only way to draw Lorena out. And you were proven right on that front. We succeeded there, and we have every right to feel happy with that success.’
Lowndes paused and drew a long breath. ‘But unfortunately it could all too easily end up a hollow victory.’ Lowndes went on to explain a case a couple of years back involving a close colleague in Montreal. A similar child abuse claim where the main evidence was gained on the psychiatrist’s couch. The father screamed ‘False Memory Syndrome’, said that the psychiatrist had planted the idea in the child’s mind, and he got off. ‘There’s been a half- dozen or more such cases nation-wide the past five years, and all of those just involved conventional therapy. With hypnosis, where possible suggestion is already seen as a strong factor — one of the reasons in fact why it has become outmoded — the chances of the FMS flag being raised are even higher. It depends how hot on the ball the stepfather is — this Mr Ryall?’
‘He’s a pretty high-profile businessman,’ Elena said vacantly. It probably came across as a surrender flag, but all Elena felt was numb. She was still assimilating what Lowndes was saying: no clear thoughts yet either way. Then she remembered from the adoption files: ‘Oh, and he used to be a barrister.’
‘Oh.’ The single exclamation was like a pistol-shot, echoing and ricocheting round the room:
In the silence following, as the prospects of a doomed case against Ryall settled like a grey shroud where only moments before Elena had seen nothing but bright hope, it suddenly dawned on Elena that Ryall had probably seen this last contingency from the outset. The chances of his secret being discovered were slim enough, but this was the final safeguard: even if it was, he’d known all along that FMS would be his get-out. All of her efforts and the dramas of the past weeks had in the end been for nothing. He’d covered every possible option. Controlling men. Story of her life.
‘No, no!’ She shook her head. That couldn’t be the final note; she couldn’t let it be. ‘Surely Lorena can’t just go back to him. The police can’t possibly let that happen.’
‘No. But you probably know how these things works as much as me. Lorena will go to foster parents for a while until this whole wrangle is sorted out. But I wouldn’t hold your breath on this one going against Ryall. She’ll probably end up having to go back to him — and the best you can do is try and complicate the legal process as much as possible to delay that inevitability.’
‘Delay?’ Elena jumped in. Only moments ago Lorena in her mind’s eye had been free of Ryall forever, now she was reduced to desperate bargaining for time. ‘How long do you think we could play things along?’
‘A good lawyer should be able to spin things out for a year, eighteen months. But don’t forget Ryall is going to be pushing just as hard to cut that time back, short-circuit things. And I don’t think you’ll have helped your case any by taking Lorena from her home in order to bring her here. Abduction, probably arguing that the evidence shouldn’t even be considered because it was gained under forced, criminal circumstances. If Ryall’s lawyer push all the right buttons, they could get it thrown out in a preliminary hearing within only a few months.’
‘Right. I see.’ Elena blinked slowly. The abduction she recognized as an obvious strike against, but she hadn’t realized that it might also get the main evidence thrown out. The chances of nailing Ryall were slipping further away by the minute. She’d hardly had a chance from the start, let alone the half-crazed woman she was now: her nerves shot from the stream of valerian pills, the pressure-cooker anxiety of running hide-and-seek from the police, and only a few hours sleep grabbed in days. She felt strangely pathetic, that somehow she could no longer get anything right: wrong about her father, and while she’d been right overall about Ryall, she’d read everything else wrong; in the end she’d been ineffectual, unable to change anything. Michel Chenouda would probably phone her that night and tell her ‘no go’ on that front as well. Dead-ends at every turn.
